You Can’t Fight New Year’s Eve

I booked myself an early flight on New Year’s Day. It was a dumb thing to do, and meant that all New Year’s Eve, I was watching the clock thinking, “I should really be packing.” Which is probably why all of the screaming and yelling on New Year’s Eve drove me nuts, and my friend “Susan” yelled at a table of people at Absinthe.

Susan joined me in being both date-less and unenthusiastic about New Year’s Eve. While we had our share of lovely party invites, we both agreed a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant would be a low-key, non-pathetic way to ring in 2012. And again, I had my early flight. I just wanted to get my NYE over with.

We decided on a late dinner at Absinthe, and made a reservation at 10:45pm. Perfect, Susan and I thought. We’d ring in the New Year over a ridiculously priced cheese plate, toast 2012 amidst classy ambiance and I could get 4 whole hours of sleep before my flight to Chicago.

Deciding to meet early, Susan and I met at Absinthe at 10:15. The bar was packed three-deep with revelers, and Susan tried to make her way to a bartender to grab a glass of wine. 10 minutes later, after politely waiting her turn, she made eye contact with him.

I watched Susan as she calmly but loudly requested a drink. The bartender, the incredibly-busy-on-New-Year’s-Eve bartender, looked at her and said, “You think you’re the only person that needs a drink right now?”

So you know, that set the tone.

We were seated at a romantic table for two, which we found both funny and sad. Wonderfully, Susan and I were delighted to have the most adorable server in town. As we ordered two bowls of soup and the biggest fancy cheese plate Absinthe had, I apologized for our weird lady-order.

“I love it!” He smiled. “You two should be running the world.”

Okay, great. Exhausted bartender aside, this will be fine, we decided. We’re having our man-less dinner on New Years Eve. We will awkwardly hug at midnight and pretend not to notice people making out. And we will eat great cheese and laugh at stuff. At least we’re not at some rager with obnoxious drunk people.

Which is when our perfect and wonderful server started handing out wacky hats and paper horns.

In retrospect, I think Susan and I were ticked off we were stuck with each other. I love her dearly, enjoy dinner with her every week or so and would be thrilled for a fancy cheese plate with her anytime. But this was New Year’s Eve. San Francisco culture dictates that at our (perfectly young) age, we should be sitting across from our internet billionaire fiances. Instead, we might as well have been talking about our cats.

“The people are the next table are killing me with the horns.” Susan whispered.

She was right. At 11:30, the horns were trumpeting in the New Year at a constant pace. Within the very packed Absinthe, 20 or so people spent the next solid hour blowing into their paper horns non-stop.

“I’m going to tell them to stop.” Susan is from New York. She shushes people in movies. It drives me nuts.

“No!” I hissed. “It’s New Year’s. This is their time, not ours.”

“F*** that.”

At that exact moment, the trio of ladies at the next table started expelling their lungs into their paper horns like Kate Winslet at the end of Titanic. Susan was done.

“I’m so sorry!” Susan screamed. She screamed this. “You really need to stop. This is ridiculous. It’s right in our ear. We have 20 minutes to go until midnight. Save your energy.”

Later, after words were exchanged, Susan revealed, “As I was saying it, I thought it might be too much. But it just came out of me. I couldn’t help it.”

Until we managed to leave at around 12:30, Susan and I were the most hated people in Absinthe. We got dirty looks from everyone except our perfect server. And rightfully so.

On holidays like New Year’s Eve, when the mood is so pre-determined towards specific demographics, perhaps I should have gone with my alternate plan: celebrate NYE at a local retirement home on Eastern Time.

There’s always next year!

* “Susan” is not her real name but “Susan” is sick of people saying, “Hey, I saw a blog post about you!”

Beth Spotswood writes two columns a week for the Culture Blog and full time for CBS San Francisco, in addition to head-writing and co-hosting of the satire webshow, Necessary Conversation. Winner of the 1986 City of Mill Valley Fire Prevention Poster Contest, Beth can be found on Twitter, and in the real world, where she also exists.